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lative evidence of intent-it is cumulative evidence of incitement to levying war; and such incitement being held equivalent to the actual levying of war, Mr. Meagher was justly and legally convicted.

This verdict in Mr. Meagher's case, and a doctrine of law laid down by Mr. Justice Moore in the trial of O'Donohue, have, so far as we have observed, been the chief subjects of cavil in connexion with these trials. The opinion expressed by Mr. Justice Moore was in reply to a question from a juror. He told the jury, that if a person aids and assists another in any act of rebellion or treason, even though he be ignorant of the traitorous intent of the person whom he so assists, he is nevertheless guilty of treason. The reason of this rule, which we take to be a settled principle of law, was thus clearly laid down in Purchase's a hundred and forty years ago:—

"If a man knowingly joins with others in breaking the peace, if in that breach of the peace they were rebels, he is so too, whether he knew them to be so or not. In rebellions it is frequent that few are let into the real design, but yet all that join in it are guilty of rebellion. It is not for a man to fight for persons actually in rebellion, and say he meant indeed to break the peace, but did not design high treason: he should have thought of that before he joined those he saw engaged in an unlawful act.

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he will knowingly break and contemn the laws, he must be content to suffer the same punishment with those he had joined in breaking them."

The doctrine as laid down by Mr. Justice Moore in O'Donohue's case, was in strict accordance with this rule.

The law-officers of the crown, and the government generally, have, indeed, from the commencement, been the incessant objects of the fiercest invective from all quarters for the manner in which they have conducted these trials. All have joined in inveighing against them-Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, Conservative as well as revolutionist. They have been accused with detaining papers found in Mr. O'Brien's trunk, which would have served him on his defence; and they have been charged with attempting te screen the Roman Catholic priesthood, whom it is stated were deeply committed to the proVOL. XXXII.-NO. CXCI.

jected insurrection. Now, the duties of a public prosecutor are perfectly obvious. Whether in state prosecutions or otherwise, it is his duty fairly, temperately, and dispassionately, to make the case for the crown, taking care at the same time to hold back nothing, whether witness or evidence, which could be of service to the prisoner, or which could tend to throw any light whatsoever on the investigation. It is not for him to catch a verdict in a criminal case by any suppressio veri-it is his duty to open every subject connected with the case, and to give every facility in his power to elucidate the truth. In a state prosecution he is, moreover, unquestionably bound to disclose to the public the full extent of the danger to which they have been exposed-to unravel the conspiracy in all its intricacies. He is not to take upon himself to select certain members of society for prosecution, and to tamper with or to make terms with others, who are equally guilty. His business is to expose the machinations of all who plot against the state, without any discrimination on his part; that we may know who really are our enemies from what quarter danger is to be apprehended what is the extent of the evil which is to be feared, and that all the guilty may be alike subjected to the penalty which the law has appointed for their crimes. Any other course than this may be suited to the minister of an arbitrary despot, but is wholly unworthy the public officer of a constitutional monarch.

If, then, the attorney-general be guilty either of the suppression of evidence, or of the screening of criminals with which he is charged, he has grossly misunderstood and perverted the duties of his office. Now, we confess that, reviewing the whole case, and the evidence which was adduced, dispassionately, we see no grounds whatsoever for charging him with the first, while we must say that there is a strong case of suspicion, but nothing more than suspicion, as regards the other. We see no reason to suppose that any of the documents contained in Mr. O'Brien's portmanteau would have in the slightest degree aided him in his defence, for his actions, his avowals, and his letters, which were proved against him, were so wholly unequivocal, as not to leave the slightest sha

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dow of a doubt as to his guilt. We cannot suppose the possibility of any evidence being adduced which could present them to the jury in any other aspect than that in which they were established by the evidence, which could alter their obvious meaning or explain them away. Nor do we recollect that this complaint was made by Mr. O'Brien himself or by his counsel, as it would most assuredly have been, if well founded. As to the charge of screening the Roman Catholic priesthood by the government, there is certainly, as we have said, a strong case of suspicion one so strong as imperatively to call for an investigation by a Committee of the House of Commons. It is not at all our opinion that the Romish priesthood, as a body, were in connexion with this insurrection. We do not forget, for example, that Mr. Meagher was branded as an infidel by the Rev. Mr. Cuddihy at the Waterford election, and that Mr. O'Brien was pelted at Limerick by the Old Ireland Repealers. We incline to think that the truth of the case is accurately represented in an anonymous report of a conversation with one of the most distinguished leaders of the late abortive attempt, which has been circulated as genuine in the newspapers, and never contradicted. The rebel leader is there reported to have stated that, "we (the rebels) have a sufficient number of the Catholic clergy with us to render nugatory the opposition of some. Waterford, Tipperary, Limerick, and Cork, we can rely on numbers of them joining us; and when we have four or five with us, we shall be able to persuade the people that the opposition which may be given us by some stupid old sordid priest, is dictated by selfishness, not religion. Oh! we are sure of all the really good priests, and with them we shall be able to overbear the rest. They are pledged to us." This conversation we think it most probable represents the true view of the case. It certainly accurately represents the expectations of the insurgents on whatever it may have been that these expectations were founded. There are various circumstances which strongly indicate that many of the Romish priesthood were abettors of this insurrection. Such of the party as are not checked by religious compunction, make no scruple in openly asserting

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that they were deceived by the priests. Mr. O'Brien's friends (and from that quarter, nothing but truth can proceed) are loud in their denunciations of the priests and their treachery. If we were to believe the evidence of the informer, Dobbin, Mr. Duffy wrote from Newgate to recommend three priests, Messrs. Kenyon, O'Malley and Hughes, to be elected as members of what he termed the war-directory. Certain it is that the balloting papers which were produced, and found with Lalor, contains eight votes for Father Kenyon, be the occasion on which there ballotting papers was used what it might. Again, when Mr. Whiteside asked one of the witnesses "if there were not many documents found in Keely's house from Roman Catholic clergymen, from some of the highest dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church," the solicitor-general objected to the question; and then we find the fol lowing extraordinary part is taken by a priest at the attack on the police at the commons of Ballingarry. We take it from the evidence of Mr. Trant, who commanded the party of police, as it was elicited on the trial of Mr. M Manus.

"Mr. Trant re-called and examinedI remember the policeman coming a second time with Father Fitzgerald; the latter gentleman came to the window, and said his mission was to make peace; he said the other party would be satisfied if we surrendered our arms, and would let us depart in safety; I replied that we would never surrender our arms but with our lives; he then remarked that they would burn the house over us; I replied that I had five hostages," meaning the children; he then said 'you have no provision,' and I said we could fight and fast forty hours, and that if we fell, there would be shortly suffi cient men to avenge our fall, and not leave a house standing in the country; I also remarked that we were doing no harm, but that if he could protect the man he had with him, he could protect us; Father Fitzgerald returned again in a few minutes, and asked me for a pallet for a dying man; I first refused, saying, I wanted everything to fortify the house, but I afterwards gave one; he then asked permission to take some poor dead and dying men away, and I gave the permission; some unarmed persons then came out from shelter, and I saw them lift up one man ; I saw

nothing more, as I was fortifying the house; Sub-inspector Cox came up in about an hour and a-half."

We confess that on no supposition of this Rev. Mr. Fitzgerald being with the insurgents in order to dissuade them from insurrection, can we understand the part that he acted on this occasion. He attempts first to cajole, and then to terrify the police into an abandonment of their duty-duty which they were sworn to discharge; and he endeavours, by inducing them, to surrender their arms and their position to a rebel force-to do the very thing which would, of all others, give the fiercest impetus to insurrection over the whole country. When, then, we add to all these evidences the sanguinary letters of Fathers Kenyon, Hughes, Bermingham, and others-when we call to mind that Dr. Maginn, and all the clergy of his diocese, joined the "league,"when we remember the hatred to the heretic and Sassenach, which ever has been the ruling principle of the Irish Roman Catholic priests, and the fact that every one of them has been long tutored in the sedition of Conciliation Hall, and that Sir C. Trevelyan, secretary to the treasury, who ought to have some access to information on the subject, states, in a letter to the Morning Chronicle, "That there. cannot be a doubt that the great body of the Roman Catholic priests have gone into the movement in the worst, that is, in the rebellious sense." When we bear all these facts in mind, we feel that a strong case of suspicion is made out against the government, and one which imperatively calls for an investigation by parlia ment. We must not, however, forget that the solicitor-general indignantly denied the charge:

"He," the solicitor general," was sure that his excellent and learned friend, Mr. Whiteside, would not lend the credit of his high character to a calumny as foul as it was false; and that the jury would give the government the credit, that if any evidence were put forward against any person, whether a layman or a minister of the Church, proceedings would be instituted without regard to his station or his religion, to bring the delinquent to justice."

We confess that we feel in justice the government is entitled to the benefit of this denial, until the time comes when the whole matter can be tho. roughly sifted in parliament-we think it highly probable that, although there may be abundant evidence to satisfy every reasonable man, beyond the possibility of doubt of the complicity of very many of the priests, that yet there may turn out, that there does not exist that demonstrative evidence of guilt which the law requires for conviction-we think it very likely that they have been too wary to commit themselves by anything approaching to overt acts of treason, although not too well affected, nor too scrupulous to instigate others to embark in it.

Again, the attorney-general has been assailed for not giving the prisoners the advantage they would have if tried in England, that of being furnished with a list of the witnesses. Now it will not be supposed that we care to go out of our way to defend the attorney-general of a Whig government-but we think it highly important, as regards the estimation which the country is to hold in the eyes of other nations, that the character of the administration of justice in our courts shall be upheld: that factious spirit which leads one Irishman ever to be prone to run down another who is opposed to him in political opinion, is one of the many curses of the country. We must say then, that we do not see by what authority Mr. Monahan could take upon himself to extend to prisoners on trial in this country, certain privileges which the law has limited to England. We are aware that there was a plea in abatement put in on this ground for all the prisoners, and a writ of error applied for, which will of course be granted by the attorneygeneral; but assuming the law to be as it has always been hitherto regarded as applying only to England, would. any attorney-general be authorized in taking upon himself to extend its provisions to this country? There may be very good grounds imagined, why in England the prisoner should have such a privilege, which in Ireland it might be most perilous to concede to him. If the attorney-general were limited to the witnesses endorsed on the in

dictment, any one of them refusing to give testimony on the table (and two witnesses so refused in Mr. O'Brien's case), might defeat the whole prosecution against the greatest delinquents on earth; for the attorney-general would be precluded from supplying his place by fresh testimony, inasmuch as the witness to whom he should then resort for such evidence, had not been endorsed on the indictment. In England the bulk of society are enlisted in support of the law-in Ireland they are arrayed in hostility to it; and it may be worthy of consideration, whether "appropriate" laws rather than "equal" laws is not the thing which is needed. We can very readily conceive that it would lead, in innumerable cases, to a failure of justice, if the prisoner in this country were given the advantage over the government which he has in England, that, namely, of knowing the witnesses to be produced by the crown, while the crown knows nothing of the witnesses

to be produced by the prisoner. Public opinion now serves as a check on the crown in the conduct of a prosecu tion, and prevents the public prosecutor from abusing the advantage the law confers on him; but everything would be allowed to a prisoner on his defence, and every advantage would be taken by him to defeat the prosecution.

Our space and time both admonish us that we must now draw this hasty notice to a close, which we do with greater regret, because that we are precluded from adverting, as we could have wished, to the incomparable advocacy of Whiteside and of Butt, on behalf of the prisoners; there is no such defence on record as that made for Mr. Meagher, since the days of Erskine, nor not anything approaching to it but we hope to have other opportunities of adverting to this noble specimen of forensic ability; for the present we must close.

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